[Gimp-developer] Touchscreen MenuBar/ToolBar (was Re: GIMP UI quality opinion)

[Christopher Curtis <ccurtis0 gmail com>]

On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 11:57 AM, Aleksey Midenkov <midenok gmail com> wrote:

> Consider the cases when user doesn't want to use keyboard. [...]
> Or have no keyboard [... and uses a]  touchscreen.

Whoddathunk something useful might have come out of this thread?

Let's assume for a moment that Widescreen Touchscreens are useful enough for 'professional' work in the field.  Do we think the UI could be improved by combining the toolbox and menu bar into a single control, which is vertically maximal and runs along the length of one side of the image?  Here's the general (ASCII-art) idea:

+---------+--------------------+
|         |         [2]        |
|         +--------------------+

|   [1]   |                    |

|         |         [3]        |

|         |                    |

+---------+--------------------+

[1] = Toolbar / Menubar Combo

[2] = Tabbed Area

[3] = Image Area

This should look fairly familiar, but the idea is to change area [1] into something resembling the following:

+=================+

|    Tool Box     |

+=================+

| [a] [b] [c] [d] |

| [e] [f] [g] [h] |

| [i] [j] [k] [l] |

|-----------------|

| [fg/bg] [brush] |

|-----------------|

| [Tool Options]  |

| [More Options]  |

| [More Options]  |

+=================+

|      File       |

+=================+

|      Edit       |

+=================+

|     Select      |

+=================+

|     Window      |

+=================+

|     Filters     |

+=================+

Then, tapping one of the other major labels adjusts the display thusly:

+-----------------+

|    Tool Box     |

+=================+

|      File       |

+=================+

|      New     -> |

|-----------------|

|      Open       |

|-----------------|

|      Save       |

|-----------------|

|     Export   -> |

|-----------------|

|      Print      |

|-----------------|

|      Quit       |

+=================+

|      Edit       |

+=================+

|     Select      |

+=================+

|     Window      |

+=================+

|     Filters     |

+=================+

The expandable items ("Export ->") could just open out to the side of the control, or replace it entirely (like the KDE "K" menu does, which I don't really like) or something more clever.

I think this could be considered similar to how the launcher in Ubuntu's 'Unity' interface works, but I haven't used that to say how useful it is.

There's certainly details that need to be worked out, but this seems like it could be both touchscreen and mouse-friendly.

$0.02,

Chris